BLESSINGS AT FEMINISM AND FAITH IN UNION in NYC: JANUARY 21, 2018

We bless you, Holy One, for the marvelous diversity of women, of many ages and faiths, races and backgrounds, gender identities and sexual orientations, abilities, needs, passions and stories. Help us to see and honor your image in each of our sisters, as well as our brothers. Fill us with fierce and tender love for one another and for your whole creation. Grant us good companions, courage and joy in the long struggle for justice and wholeness. Help us to offer our gifts boldly, to support one another generously, and never to lose heart. Bless and inspire the work we do, for the healing of the world. Amen.

Wakan Tanka, Great Mystery, teach me how to trust my heart, my mind, my intuition, my inner knowing, the senses of my body, the blessings of my spirit. Teach me totrust these things so that I may enter my sacred space and love beyond my fear , anger, hurt, hate, jealousy, self pity. Look way down deeper where the dreams lie and thus walk in beauty with the passing of each glorious sun. Find your dream. It’s the pursuit of the dream that heals you.

The Sioux Nation has asked all women to embrace their sacred connection to water by joining Indian Nations in daily prayer for water at dawn. They’ve asked that every day women go their local water and pray for its healing and protection, joining women across the world thru prayers. Love water. If a person cannot make it to a source of water at a specific time in the morning, then a cord can be mentally created in mediation to send prayers to the water.
May you dream that we carry the positive effects we have on each other and that we lighten the load by giving it away to others. Amen.

Deborah Rose-Milavec, Executive Director of FutureChurch

In every generation, women have, and continue to faithfully and generously respond to the call to serve God and God’s holy people. They have been apostles and disciples, leaders, preachers, educators, counselors, musicians, artists, writers, comforters, pastoral ministers, chaplains, and yes, priestly people offering their gifts to The Body Of Christ.

Yet our church now suffers a poverty of spirit brought about by the exclusion of women from full participation in the life, ministry and leadership of the church. Today, we women and men, sisters and brothers, grandmothers and grandfathers, aunts and uncles, mothers and fathers, godparents, members of The Body Of Christ, gather together as one family to pray for a church that is truly inclusive and alive with the gifts, spirit and potential of all its members.

We gather in thanksgiving for, and celebration of, the women who came before us, our foremothers in faith, whose too-often forgotten stories instruct and inspire us. We gather in solidarity with the women of today, whose demands for justice and inclusion call us to conversation and conversion.

We gather in hope for our daughters, the next generation, whose God-given possibility and potential compels us to work for a church for our daughters and for all women and men.

Good and loving God, Creator of women and men in your own image, create in us a desire for the wholeness you planned. Word made flesh and born of woman, empower us to hear and speak your redeeming truth. Spirit companion of women throughout space and time guide us as we work to build a church for all our sisters and brother here in our community and throughout the world. Amen.

Dr. Luz Marina Diaz, Director of Religious Educations, The Church of St. Francis Xavier

English translation
“A Prayer For Venezuela,”
Feminism and Faith in unity for the Needy, for Refugees, Immigrants, for the countries in conflict. As a Venezuelan I want to dedicate a prayer for Venezuela. Prayer written Karem Barratt.
May Peace envelop your snowy mountains.
May Peace embrace your savannas and estuaries.
May Peace dance on your tepuis and swim
in the wild force of your rivers.
May Peace stroll through your valleys and hillsides,
by Guaraira Repano and by the emeralds,
lapis lazuli waters of your beaches.
Let Peace slip into the empanadas stand
and in the school of small desks.
May Peace be felt in the art nurseries,
science and justices of your universities.
May Peace sing with guitars that
they come out at the end of each party.
May Peace inhabit large cities
and minimum hamlets.
May Peace keep those vital veins
which are highways and roads.
May Peace find a
corner in all the homes of your people;
that Peace is nested in their hearts
and live in their languages ​​permanently.
May Peace dry your tears
dear Venezuela.
May Peace make you smile
and embellish your life as you pamper yourself in flower.
May Peace be your flag, your shield, your hymn.
May Peace be your achievement, your glory, your honor.
May Peace be you and under the cloak of Peace,
Live your children in harmony, respect and union.
May the sweet Virgin of the Coromoto,
Patroness of Venezuela,
Cover us with your cloak and protect us from all evil.

Sheila Peiffer, President, Board of Directors, Women’s Ordination ConferenceGracious and Loving God of all, We ask your blessing on those who gather here to uphold the principle that “Women’s rights are Human rights” We come together as your infinitely varied family acknowledging that the good of each is bound up in each.

We walk together to honor the legacy of all who have worked for justice before us, We walk together to bring a spark of hope to the despairing,
We walk together to lift up gender equality, racial justice, LGBTQI rights, immigration reform and all the many issues that cry out for solutions of compassion, wisdom and right.

We walk together to ensure that every road is open to each child of God who needs a path to trod and a rhythm of pace that brings harmony of soul and life. Holy One, send forth your Spirit on all those who are here.

Grant us courage to be steadfast, make us gentle in confronting power,
guide us in uniting feminism and faith and help us harness kindness and humor as we walk in solidarity to bring fullness of life to all. Amen.

Brothers and Sisters, People of God, We who are church. We are called to action — to be church and announce the good news that we are made, female and male, in the image and likeness of God. We are called to action — to promote works of mercy and Catholic social justice to build the kingdom of God on earth.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ (in union), the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!”
2 Corinthians 5:17

Almighty and all-vulnerable God,
Help us to know the depth of your love, moving us toward inclusivity, mercy and justice.
Help us not to condemn our oppressors but to heal ourselves so that we can restore each other.
Grant us a NEW heart and a NEW spirit, raising our consciousness so we may see with the eyes of love.
Help us to use our voices to speak truth, allowing it to be a lamp unto our feet to light the darkened paths ahead.
Help us to re-member our oneness and stand in unity. Christian/Muslim, black/white, woman/man and every beautiful day of light in between.
To honor those who have fought and lost their lives speaking love in the face of fear.
Grant us a peace that passes understanding, knowing that you do not call the prepared, you prepare the called!

So we stand and we march together, on this new day in the presence of God, knowing that by this presence, we are prepared!

Search

Search for:

About This Work

The Women Who Stayed, FutureChurch, Women’s Ordination Conference, and Call To Action are pleased to share this opportunity to witness to the gift of the full and equal participation of women in the Catholic Church. JOIN US!